Is There Really a Racial Divide Between North and South?

Polling shows things have changed.

Whether it is primarily due to migration, mass media, federal policy, or the homogenizing effects of global capitalism, the cultural and political differences between the North and South have become less pronounced in recent decades. But it remains unclear just how different Southerners remain from their fellow citizens in other parts of the country. White Southerners’ attitudes on the issue of race remain a question of particular interest and importance.

This subject has been coming up with increasing frequency. Across the South, monuments to the Confederacy have been coming down—though not everywhere in the region—and with some serious pushback. Alabama, for example, passed legislation protecting such monuments in May. A white nationalist rally in defense of Confederate statues occurred in Charlottesville, Va., that same month. A similar rally is apparently in the works in a few weeks.

On the other hand, if support for Trump is a reasonable proxy for racial attitudes (I vacillate on whether it is), we might say that white Southerners are moving in a different direction compared to the rest of the country. That is, in some Southern states, Trump underperformed compared to recent Republican presidential candidates. This is one reason Trump was able to win the election, despite not actually increasing the Republican share of the white vote: He gained white votes in states where it mattered, but held steady or actually lost white support in states where it mattered less.

WhereasMitt Romney won 68 percent of the white vote in North Carolina,Trump won only 63 percent of that demographic group.Trump also performed worse thanRomney among whites in Virginia. Of the Southern states for which we have exit poll data from both years, only Florida showed an increase in the Republican share of the white vote.

Reniqua Allen raised the geographic distribution of racial views in her recent New York Times piece, “Racism is Everywhere, So Why Not Move South?” She correctly noted that black Millennials are moving to states like Texas and Georgia, and exiting states like New York. Allen suggested that the greater opportunities for blacks in the South outweigh the higher levels of racism in the region, which may not actually be much higher.

I am not qualified to comment on how black Americans’ experiences with prejudice varies across the country, and am not suggesting that this is something that can be measured by anonymous public opinion polls. But given recent events and Allen’s article, it is worth considering whether surveys show a significant geographic divide among white Americans when it comes to race.

To begin answering this question, we can turn to the most recent American National Election Survey. I havementioned before that the 2016 survey had a trove of very good questions relating to race. By disaggregating whites in the North and South, we should be able to discern if there is still a significant difference in attitudes, as this survey had a sufficient number of white respondents to allow us to disaggregate the data by region and maintain confidence that the results are correct; the survey included 853 Southern whites and 2,185 non-Southern whites.

There are too many questions about race on that survey for me to discuss all of them in detail here, but a few stood out as worthy of extra scrutiny. We might expect, for example, for Southerners to be particularly hostile to affirmative action, both because of the GOP’s history of using that issue in the South (such as Jesse Helms’ infamous“white hands” commercial) and because the comparatively large African American population in most Southern states makes affirmative action more likely to actually impact Southern whites.

Yet when it comes to affirmative action, the difference in opinion is rather small. In both the North and the South, white support for affirmative action in university admissions is weak. Among Northern whites, about 15 percent favored “allowing universities to increase the number of black students studying at their schools by considering race along with other factors when choosing students.” In the South, this number was 12 percent. That is very low, but scarcely lower than what we find among the white Yankee population.

The ANES similarly asked respondents whether they believed whites were actually suffering negative real-world consequences because of affirmative action policies. Specifically, they were asked, “How likely is it that many whites are unable to find a job because employers are hiring minorities instead?” Once again, the results show greater concern about affirmative action in the South, but the difference is quite small in each category, and very few whites in any region think it is “extremely likely” that affirmative action keeps whites from finding jobs.

We see greater geographic variation, however, in the answers to the vaguer question, “In general, does the federal government treat whites better than blacks, treat them both same, or treat blacks better than whites?”

In both regions, a near majority of respondents declared that the government was racially neutral. And when that category is combined with those whites that think the government is actually anti-white, we are looking at a large majority of the white population in both regions. AsI’ve written before, this suggests that discussions about white privilege have had a meager impact on the actual attitudes of most white Americans.

Although we should not overstate this difference, it is notable that whites in the South were more likely to think the federal government has a pro-black bias than a pro-white bias; this is not true outside the South. In fact, almost one third of Southern whites believe the government treats blacks better, compared to about one fifth of whites elsewhere.

To be clear, the belief that the federal government favors African Americans is not necessarily rooted in anti-black prejudice, nor is opposition to affirmative action—though feelings on those questions will certainly be correlated with feelings of prejudice. So what about questions that more closely approximate what social scientists now call “old fashioned racism”? Are Southern whites more likely to openly state negative beliefs about blacks? We may question the accuracy of polls using such questions, given that social desirability bias may cause many whites to answer dishonestly. But unless we expect dishonesty to vary systematically in the North and South, we can still use them to look for regional differences.

When looking at these kinds of questions, we again see differences, and in the expected direction, but the gap is small in each case. When asked about black Americans’ work ethic, about four percent of non-Southern whites described blacks as “lazy”; among Southern whites, the percentage was about five percent. On a similarly-worded question asking whether blacks are violent or peaceful, about eight percent of Southern whites described blacks as violent, compared to about four percent of non-Southern whites.

Given the rather modest regional differences on most of these questions, it is possible that the gaps that exist are driven by other factors (such as different average levels of educational attainment), rather than the lingering memory of Jim Crow and de-segregation. But regardless of the causal mechanism at work, there does appear to be a gap. The question is how much it matters.

There are various ways we can interpret these data. Depending on your hopes and expectations, these numbers may be distressing or encouraging.

White Southerners who are frustrated when described as racists by their fellow citizens to the north can note that the Mason-Dixon Line is not a clear divider when it comes to racial attitudes. This may also be a relief to people concerned that the North-South divide is once again becoming dangerously wide.

White nationalists who hope the American South will be a vanguard of a white racial awakening will be discouraged to see that Dixie is, on most of these questions, only marginally different from the rest of the country. Anti-racists, who may want to blame the South for all of America’s racial divides, will be frustrated to learn that it is not just reactionary white Southerners holding racial progress at bay.

These descriptive statistics from one survey are of course not definitive. Nor do they adequately capture the lived experience of race relations in the South or elsewhere. But these data do provide one further indication that North-South divide on racial attitudes, although real, is narrow.

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15 Responses to Is There Really a Racial Divide Between North and South?

My theory is that race is more of a settled issue in the south than in the north. Just look at the geography of the incidents that have drawn the most attention for Black Lives Matter and its supporters. The story is no longer about Selma but about Ferguson.

My sweetie told me a saying about how blacks were treated in the old days, “In the South, you can get as close as you want, as long as you don’t rise too high. In the North, you can rise as high as you want, as long as you don’t get too close.”

Wallace ran a campaign supporting law and order and states’ rights on racial segregation that strongly appealed to rural white Southerners and blue-collar union workers in the North. Wallace was leading the three-way race in the Old Confederacy with 45% of the vote in mid-September. Wallace’s appeal to blue-collar workers and union members (who usually voted Democratic) hurt Hubert Humphrey in Northern states like Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A mid-September AFL-CIO internal poll showed that one in three union members supported Wallace, and a Chicago Sun-Times poll showed that Wallace had a plurality of 44% of white steelworkers in Chicago.

Interesting article, though it’s not clear what is meant by the word “Southerner”. In 1960 I went with my parents on a trip to South, starting in upstate NY, past the M-D Line and on down old Route 301 through VA, NC, SC and GA, past innumerable Stuckey’s Pecan road stands, miles and miles of cotton fields and shacks, not to mention the inevitable “Colored Only” motels. THAT–was the “South.” Very few Northerners lived outside and south of the Potomac in those days. As an adult I have spent only limited time down South so I can’t speak from personal observation but I do know that demographically and indeed culturally, the South of 2017 bears virtually no resemblance to the South that I saw as a kid. Over the years, the South has seen millions of Northern transplants, fleeing cold weather and high taxes, all seeking a better lifestyle. Thus, I am wondering if the author’s research controlled for transplanted Northerners and/or Southern-born immediate ancestors of transplanted Northerners? I would have to assume that he did, otherwise the research would be flawed.

it is notable that whites in the South were more likely to think the federal government has a pro-black bias than a pro-white bias; this is not true outside the South.

Sounds like you answer your own question here. That is a small racial difference in attitudes in the South versus non-South. (Additionally, I would not be surprised if there are some significant differences in Southern states here.)

Anyone living in the Northeast whom travels to the Southern states will find that people are friendlier in general. People look at each other and are open to conversation. You can even talk about faith and have an open conversation.

A thoughtful analysis. I would be interested in Prof. Hawley’s analysis of the divide between southern and northern states on the decision of whether to expand Medicaid. How much does it reflect a belief that expansion mainly benefited blacks and other minorities?

rE: Wallace ran a campaign supporting law and order and states’ rights on racial segregation that strongly appealed to rural white Southerners and blue-collar union workers in the North.

Many of those blue collar whites were transplanted southerners who came north to work in the factories. Where I grew up in Michigan )Detroit metro area) it was common to add -tucky to a town name to indicate it was full of such transplants from Appalachia. And when I lived in Akron OH 1999-2003), the joke among locals was still that Akron was the northernmost town in West Virginia.

“Anyone living in the Northeast whom travels to the Southern states will find that people are friendlier in general. People look at each other and are open to conversation. You can even talk about faith and have an open conversation.”

It definitely depends on who you talk to, your appearance and what your faith is. Also, what theirs is.

Kent A Powell says:
July 31, 2017 at 11:24 am
Anyone living in the Northeast whom travels to the Southern states will find that people are friendlier in general. People look at each other and are open to conversation. You can even talk about faith and have an open conversation.

I have had the exact opposite experience with the South. I’m from the southeastern most portion of the midwest, or the most northwestern portion of the south (Southern Illinois, Southern Indiana, Western Kentucky). My wife’s family is from Georgia, and we went down there this summer to visit.

I have never had to deal with more rude people in my life. They made the people I’ve had to deal with in Chicago seem friendly and well adjusted. Maybe people in the south really are friendlier than people in the northeast, I’ve never been to the northeast to know- but people in the south are most definitely not friendlier than people in the midwest.

I have spent a lot of time avoiding this article. I was unsure if I could be objective in any manner. Which would determine which name to use.

Dr. Hawley, the problem is that your premise is based on feelings. Moving south is not really an indicator of a divide. Whether one feels like job color preferences exist and to what degree of impact is not going to necessarily reflect the reality.

The racial divide exists between blacks and whites in general. That blacks have been moving south has been a phenomenon for at least 12 years (when I first heard it). I found it funny that anyone gave Mr Freeman, much notice. By the time he moved south, he was well established actor. Long past his prison stint. Sure he bought a plantation style home or a former plantation that he can enjoy at his leisure. Great for him. Sincerely, he’s earned every dime and every leisure that comes his way. However, upon becoming successful, it might be a tad easier to embrace one’s former hurdles, because they no longer exist. And nothing diminishes the issue of color like dollars.

Again my position on AA remains where I entered the discussion years ago. What is often referred to as AA isn’t AA. It was never intended to accept or promote anyone who could or did not meet certain qualifications. Further, it has been described as such a mechanism, but I am not sure the numbers actually bare out the description.

I have lived in the South: Georgia, Texas, Virginia. And the issues concerning race were palpable. I remember rock fights across gullies along with name calling. I remember driving through Killeen Texas late at night with someone I knew who visibly shaken as we dodged along the winding back woods roads. that it was in the 1980’s. I would grant that as interactions increase some attitude shifts will occur. But I m going to be disinclined to accept data indicating some significant shift. I suspect that it depends on whether one is talking to whites in Ferguson or blacks in Brooklyn. And I was not aware of those distinctions in the date sets.